Yeah, I agree. A little "read me first" sheet is also hugely helpful. I've actually talked to people, and the information stickers and the "read me first" sheets (or stickers referring to the sheets) do quite a lot to get people down the right road when they're just pulling something out of the box.

While it doesn't provide much help for any Astak purchasers who don't frequent the MobileRead forums, Robertb is present throughout the threads constantly reminding people to read the Astak FAQ, to charge the battery, to update to the latest firmware.

While doing a "straight out of the box" review is commendable from the many aspects iterated, it can also be misleading. Reading a review, one assumes they are getting the latest information on the unit. For instance, perhaps the description of a cumbersome process to get back to the page last read might cause a shopper to buy elsewhere, when in fact the cumbersome process is no longer required.

Ereading devices are probably a rare animal, with Astak/Hanlin/BeBook even rarer, because there aren't many other devices out there for which a firmware update makes functional improvements without an accompanying new model year.

I would think starting a review with its own "read me first" paragraph would be fair to both the reader and manufacturer. It could either state something along the lines that the unit is reviewed as is out of the box, but that improvements may have been made with a later firmware (check theezreader.com).

Or a (more accurate) review could be after a firmware update, with a "read me first" paragraph stating that the unit is being reviewed using the latest firmware "nnnnnn", available at theezreader.com, which it is advised the buyer check out, as well.

I would much rather be told I need an update to get all the features mentioned in a review than choose not to buy the product based on a review that leaves stuff out because the information in it is out-dated.

On the other hand. If the review was written before the latest firmware was available, then shame on me for jumping to conclusions.

Btw, I still have all the stickers on my laptop, DVD player, and AV receiver, although I did take the clear plastic off the displays.

Last edited by eGeezer; 01-01-2010 at 02:54 PM.
Reason: restructured and shortened, removing "you" references, since it is not intended as an accusation

Your review is appreciated -- but I was taken aback that it is the first (and only) e-reader you have used. Putting the Astak device in context of Amazon's Kindle and/or Sony's E-readers seems table stakes to me in a review like this. And as others have noted, the "just out of the box experience" is valuable, but one of Astak's purported strengths (and that of a so-called open OS) is that updates are frequent. For this reason, a point-of-view using the most current (and specifically identified) firmware would be more helpful. Have you considered an update review?

As a reader, can you comment more on the font? Every image I have ever seen of the Astak devices show a pretty large font, with non-existent page margins. I note you mention 3 font sizes. My experience is with the Kindle 2: I believe six font sizes are available and, for .mobi class files, there is some "air" around the page just like a printed mass paperbook. Illustrations may reach margin-to-margin, but type does not. The embedded single Kindle font is also very legible, even in small sizes. On a related note: can you change the "words per line"? that changes the margins on the Kindle. And -- can you select left-, right-, centre- or full-justification? People like choice: the Kindle 2 fixes everything at full-justification.

As a geek, is 8 gray scales enough for text and rudimentary picture display? Or should we demand 16, 32 or 64 levels? Plus, there is talk about xGB of storage. Generally, I am a believer in "more is better". With an e-reader, I'm not quite so sure. "More" means a more complex filing / index system. I think a device which offers "enough" internal memory -- possibly with the option of more via SD -- finds the best path. However, I'm coming to believe that 1, 2 , 4, 8 GB might be "enough" internal storage saving the added manufacturing cost of an external SD capability. Is 512 MB enough for you? (I gather it is, btw, from your comment about 1024 books ...)

The ability to "skip 10 pages" at once sounds cool; I can enter specific "locations" on my Kindle 2 but that's pretty tedious. Bookmarking is a cinch, but then it remembers where I left off. I gather the updated firmware for the Astak reader also remembers the "left off" page -- hopefully for every book "opened" at some point.

There was nothing stated about the file system or how easy / hard it is to sync your PC collection of e-books with the Astak over USB. Have you had a chance to experiment with different file formats since the initial review? Specifically, how well it works with prc, pdf, doc, txt, ade and epub files? Have you tried using it with a public library Overdrive system?

Finally, and you may wish to comment offline, I was trying to download one or more of your novels from your website -- you've piqued my interest in your writing. I couldn't sort out how to get them, alas. "Trail of Faith" and "Empire" sounded intriguing.

In my experience, the font size varies by book. I haven't played with making the font bigger or smaller much because this doesn't bother me. I don't believe there is any ability to change the words per line.

I haven't been bothered by the 8 grey scale, but I'm going mostly for the text, anyway. There is an SD card slot, and I just work off my SD card. That means I can put an awful lot of books on my reader. Could even swap out cards, if needed, but really, how many books does one need to carry around? I've got over 800 books on my Pocket Pro right now, and that really is overkill.

I don't think it remembers the last point opened for every book you've opened. Skipping 10 pages is cool, but I don't use it all that often.

Syncing is a matter of drag and drop. There is no special software (which means I'm golden, as a Linux user). I've had great luck with prc files, epubs seem to open fine. I haven't used it with Overdrive (damn their DRMed souls, if they have one, to hell) yet, although I did get a library card from a system that uses them, so I'll get around to it at some point (see the above statement about 800+ books, though).

Never used a Kindle, so I can't comment on any of that.

I know you weren't addressing me, but as I actually didn't think the review was particularly well done, I'm jumping in.

There is an SD card slot, and I just work off my SD card. That means I can put an awful lot of books on my reader. Could even swap out cards, if needed, but really, how many books does one need to carry around? I've got over 800 books on my Pocket Pro right now, and that really is overkill.

My point about storage is that "less is more", in a sense. I have abt 70 titles on my Kindle 2 and, barring a better indexing system, I'm not sure I want any more (it holds 2GB apparently) -- certainly not 500 or 1000 titles. That's what my PC is for: it's the mother ship. The e-reader is just the shuttle that gets me where I am going. I want to have enough choice to cover what I am actually reading, what I just read, what I am thinking of reading -- enough for variety of choice for a lengthy vacation ... but I don't need the Library of Alexandria at my fingertips. And, ditching the SD card reader makes the cost a little lower. Plus, not to be unkind, but there have been repeated comments about oddities in the actual physical SD mechanism Astak has used.

I haven't had trouble taking the SD card out, but my hands are small. I've seen those comments, so I actually spent about 10 min. popping the card in and out with no problems.

Indexing is one of those under-appreciated things. Without a good index, it doesn't matter what you have, because you can't find it. I've got things arranged by author than title, but that is done with the filesystem. I suppose I could create symlinks and such, but that'd be a lot of work to get things the way I'd really like them to be.

It was pleasant to have an SD card with a bunch of PG titles come with the Pocket Pro. I'd already downloaded a bunch of stuff, but this meant I could fire her up (after the initial charge) and start reading right away. It is a nice touch, I wasn't expecting it and SD cards are cheap enough in bulk that I think leaving it out wouldn't mean a much lower price.

And, ditching the SD card reader makes the cost a little lower. Plus, not to be unkind, but there have been repeated comments about oddities in the actual physical SD mechanism Astak has used.

I believe the issues of the SD card removal were not with the EZReader line.

I never had problems. I even managed to release the card from the fully seated position by carelessly shoving the PEz into my computer bag pocket. Even then, the card only released to the 1st position and needed to be pulled upon for removal.

OK, so let me backtrack on any problems I thought I read about the SD mechanism.

Where I am going is that at some point -- maybe 512 MB is enough, or maybe 4 GB is enough, I can't say -- the reader itself doesn't need "more" memory. When it docks with a PC it can "refuel".

I think I am looking for any manufacturing / support savings to either lower the cost of the device or add something extra (additional fonts, more gray scales or wifi perhaps?).

In Toronto, the Astak EB06EZ is the only model available locally and it's almost Can$330 with taxes. That's virtually the same cost, with shipping, of the Kindle 2, a little less if the Astak case is included.

You mention organization and transfer abilities. The PP supports folders, so my computer sees it as a USB drive. I copy books over to the folders of my choice. Calibre automates the creation of folders and I have it set up to automatically create a folder for books in a series and put numbers at the beginning of the titles so I can read them in order. On my PP, I have a folder for the author, then a folder for series.

Font size and white space vary greatly with how you format the book. With the Calibre settings I use, I get just a bit of white space. The PP uses different software for the different file types. Someplace there's a Wiki with descriptions of all of them, including font size. I think a recent update of the firmware also gave more font sizes to some of the formats. Personally, I use ePubs and find the middle of five sizes to be very readable.

It works great with library books from Overdrive. If you turn it off completely, it loses the date/time settings, which might cause your book to expire prematurely. Since there's really no reason to turn it off, this isn't usually an issue for me.

I'm with you on ability to organize. I don't understand why an ebook manufacturer provides a large storage capacity but then thinks that ability to list by author or title is enough. Being able to carry lots of books is the whole point of having the device. Why make it hard for me to organize and find them? I like the Sony's ability to use metadata and wish more manufacturers would provide that. If I can't have that, the folders are the next best thing. Having had folders, I don't see myself using something like the Kindle or the Nook simply because I want to be able to organize my stuff.

There are actually now 9 font steps (Original - S - M - L - XL - XXL - XXXL - 4XL - 5XL). I am sure that any pics of the Astak show larger fonts because they show up better in pictures. The epubs I read on my Hawaii trip were all Overdrive books from my library, with the initial/original font requiring a magnifying glass for these old eyes.

Typically, I hit the zoom (8) key once for comfortable reading in bright light (sunlight, good lamplight) and once more for dimmer light. It seems the Original can be different from one book to the other, which then apparently makes the S and M settings I use differ somewhat, as well.

For instance, the current book "original" is decidedly smaller than the menu font with about a 3/4" right margin, while "S" is larger, but still slightly smaller, than the menu font, about 32 lines per page (r margin about 1/8").

The previous book, the "S" setting was slightly larger than the menu font, about 27 lines per page (r margin 1/8"). The "about" qualification is because paragraph spacing appears to be 1/2 line and not all page samples had equal numbers of paragraphs.

Naturally, the words per line totally depends on the font size, and except for the "Original size" font, the margin is consistently about 1/8" all around.

I have over 500 epub books, which are about 500m each, so the 2g SD card is not even close to filled with a big whopping 275ish meg.

As far as a filing system. I haven't gotten into it more than using the provided "Digital Editions" folder for all ADE downloads (purchases and Overdrive), a "My ePubs" folder for non-ADE ePubs I have chosen to download, and an "Astak Free books" folder separated into 5 folders meaningful to me.

I have added some author folders in some folders, and manually add an initial sequence number to series titles.

I create any folders by plugging the SD card into my card reader and doing some drag and drop -- except for ADE's which need to be dragged and dropped inside Adobe Digital Editions itself. I suppose I should mention that I really create this folder system on my computer and transfer it to the SD card (or portions/additions)

I only got this toy for Christmas, but am more pleased with it the more I use it. Perhaps I could have made it all the way home without a recharge, but the night before we returned home, the indicator showed one bar, so played it safe and charged it up.

Got a few (is that a Kindle, is that like a Kindle, you have to download books, right?) questions around the pool, but for the most part, no one made any note. I meant to wander up and down the aisle in the plane just to see how many readers I found, but totally forgot cuz I was busy reading and reading and ...

Got thru three 400+ page books, and a 195 book from 1906 about the history of Astronomy -- Did you know Copernicus really only said that the Earth was in motion rather than in a fixed position?

I suspect most of my battery use was from constantly making bookmarks, then going into the bookmark page and deleting all but two. One thing I find missing in an ebook is the excitement of knowing how close the end of the book is by the thickness of the stack of pages on each side of my thumb, so I started making an initial bookmark for the last page, so I just needed to make a bookmark for my current locatioin and open the bookmark page to get digital equivalent of the "feel" of getting close to the end.

Ya know, after finally getting to review a Nook recently, I'm even more sold on the Astak readers. Compared to the Astak (which I used for comparison in the review), the Nook was a joke. I was generous and gave it some higher marks than it really deserved, but it's still nowhere near the quality of the Astak. The only thing that rated higher on the Nook was the fact that it had the newest generation Eink screen, which allowed it to have better quality text and faster refreshes. Otherwise, it's at the bottom of the stack for Ereaders, with the Astaks at the top.

OK, so let me backtrack on any problems I thought I read about the SD mechanism.

Where I am going is that at some point -- maybe 512 MB is enough, or maybe 4 GB is enough, I can't say -- the reader itself doesn't need "more" memory. When it docks with a PC it can "refuel".

I think I am looking for any manufacturing / support savings to either lower the cost of the device or add something extra (additional fonts, more gray scales or wifi perhaps?).

In Toronto, the Astak EB06EZ is the only model available locally and it's almost Can$330 with taxes. That's virtually the same cost, with shipping, of the Kindle 2, a little less if the Astak case is included.

Dear SensualPoet:

I work for Astak and I agree that getting the price lower is needed. I battle this daily.

Factories in China and Taiwan make devices for all the world. They do not build specific to North America. I wish they would. While reading may be largely the same in Hamburg, Germany and in San Jose, California... there are ways that we look at things that are different. I call these perceptions. In the 1960s, the world was not so SMALL. People got use to things the way they were. I remember when I was stationed in Germany that they used levers to open doors. We in the USA used round doorknobs. Light switches in Germany turned on and off by a circular switch. The USA used an up and down switch.

My point is that markets ARE different in different countries. With eBook Readers, largely, it is one device fits all. In each country, people are different. You see your computer as a "refuel" for books on your device. Me, I see it as a "permanent record" but want to carry my whole library with me. Neither one of us is right or wrong.

The big battle is that factories churn out devices. They do not ask Astak, for example, how they should design a device. They say "we have a device now sell it". That can hurt. The factories decide how many features the device has. They may design a new 8 inch device, for example, and put the buttons on the back and add 3G and Touchscreen and a keyboard and notetaking, and TTS, and such. Rarely do they offer a device with or without features. Features decides the price.

Many of us on this forum do not want Touchscreen or 3G or care about a keyboard. We would gladly take it without and save maybe $80. Reality is the factories will build it the way they want to have it.

Now, Astak can and does change it to make it (in our opinion, better) by selling it in colors, offering better support (like on this forum), and opening a new eBook Store to support it. At least with the store we can be different and slowly get it the way the majority of people seem to like it. That is why we love the eBook Store as we can change it radically and do a total redesign and improve functionality and be more open to suggestions. We can be CREATIVE! We can excel by listening better.

With devices we are more limited. I wish we were not; but we are. Now, our new MID (Mobile Internet Device) in 7 inch, when it comes out, it will be a true Astak design. We are controlling that. It is about 70% complete and we think it will be amazing. We do have new eBook Readers coming out too. We are checking out a new Wi-Fi model right now that has a keyboard and notetaking and a lot more. I like it and we can say "this function needs to be improved and this might be better this way"... but basically it will sell as the factory wants to finish it. We cannot say "build it without the keyboard and drop the cost commenserate" as an example.

I can say that Astak is VERY aware of cost and we are trying to get them down. The charge to us is the problem.

Thanks for the info guys. Yeah, I fiddled all over the place trying to figure out how to play music and read a book at the same time, and for the life of me couldn't make it happen. But it's good to know that. And yes, I knew about the user replaceable battery, but figured that since 95% of people either won't replace it, or won't know how/care/etc, it wasn't a big deal to report it. The other 5% will figure out how to do it on their own anyways.

Oh, and RobertB, I try to be as in depth and detailed as I can on my reviews. The readers want and appreciate it, and if they're happy, I'm happy.

BTW, if you have any other ebook readers, mobile devices, or anything else Linux powered you want reviewed in the future, I'm always open to doing more reviews.

Its a fair review and points out many of the unit's good points, but on the other side I would have pointed out the one glaring weakness--the total inability of the unit to properly organize files without tons of forethought and manual planning. Hopefully that can be addressed eventually with the firmware (the ability to mark "Favorite books" alone would go a long way), but for now its the fly in the ointment of an otherwise great piece of equipment.

Good point. I had forgotten to mention that. On a side note, it does seem good at alphabetically listing everything. But then again, so does all the others I've seen so far. So I wouldn't call that a fault so much as an inconvenient feature. And personally, I think the Nook's ointment has a few too many flies for my taste. ^_^

Good point. I had forgotten to mention that. On a side note, it does seem good at alphabetically listing everything. But then again, so does all the others I've seen so far. So I wouldn't call that a fault so much as an inconvenient feature. And personally, I think the Nook's ointment has a few too many flies for my taste. ^_^

An inconvenient feature. I like that. It is the most versatile system around. Just create folders which you can name anything you wish and as deep as you wish and put you books wherever you wish. If you need favorites just make a folder named favorites. Easy. It does keep track of recently read which is enough organization for me along with alphabetical order. Of course YMMV. I don't like systems that forces me to learn their way of organizing. However you can always use ADE or Calibre to do your organizing.

The inconvenience is mostly that you have to do it while connected to a computer.